Yuji Naka

From Sega Retro

Fast facts on Yuji Naka

Place of birth: Osaka, Japan

Date of birth: 1965-09-17 (age 51)

Role(s): Programmer, Designer, Producer, Executive

Yuji Naka (中 裕司), born 17 September 1965 in Osaka, Japan, is a video game designer, programmer, the former head of Sonic Team (usually credited by his alias, YU2), and currently the head of the video game development company, Prope.

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History

When Yuji Naka was 17 years old, he decided that he wanted to program video games. He owed this fascination to Ryuichi Sakamotos "Yellow Magic Orchestra" program, which allowed the composition of music on your computer.

Being a large fan of Namco, Yuji Naka aimed to work for them after he graduated from college. However, Namco only accepted work from university graduates, and thus Yuji Naka would not be eligible as he did not want to go to university.

He did however score a job at Sega as a programming assistant. His first release was a game for the SG-1000 called Girl's Garden. Yuji Naka's distinction was producing/project managing projects while simultaneously handling the lead programming of them. Examples of this are Space Harrier II and Phantasy Star II.